We’ve all gathered together to send some holiday cheer.
We sure need it after 2020 – whew, what a horrible year!
Today Linda told us that we must look extra cute.
‘Cuz tonight we await the big man in the red suit.
After Santa delivers toys on his worldwide journey.
Linda says he may visit here and stop at each tree.
So, we’ll all wait in our nests for Santa Claus to arrive.
And stay up really late (we usually are asleep by five).
Linda was here to visit – she brought us a holiday lunch.
We had snowman cookies, walnuts, peanuts and punch.
We always love peanuts, but the other treats sure were yummy.
Afterward, we wanted a nap – all those cookie carbs in our tummy!
But instead, Linda said “how ’bout we take some fun pics?”
She asked our permission, even though it was just for kicks.
Linda brought bows, antlers and funny hats so we’d look cute AND pretty.
Then she said “let’s make a post with your pics and a fun Christmas ditty.”
“You could look high and low and no cuter squirrels would you find!”
That’s what Linda always says – heck it’s true (she’s not just being kind).
So, don’t forget to leave treats for Santa and his reindeer once it’s dark.
Merry Christmas from Linda and all her little furry friends at the Park.
P.S.: One more special wish and some merriment before you depart here.
If you click right at this spot, you are sure to find a little Christmas cheer.
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
I loved your photos! Marvelously well done!
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Glad you liked the photos Anne. Once again, Parker and pals hijacked my blog, but this time it was not to disparage me, but to thank me for treats and making them look cute. 🙂
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I’d love a lesson on how to apply those cute hats.
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Anne – I’ll be happy to e-mail you the directions to make the cute hats or if you’re in a hurry, send me a picture and tell me what hat and I’ll do it for you.
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I’d love the directions. No time to play right now!!
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I sent ’em to you … see what you think.
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I hope to play tomorrow.
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Have fun!
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Merry Christmas Linda, the photos are so cute and your poem put a smile on my face. The Christmas card was so festive and fun. She makes the most beautiful cards. And a happy new year as well Linda.
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Merry Christmas and all the best in 2021 to you too Sandra – glad you liked the photos and poem. I thought we needed a dose of fun and cuteness this Christmas. I like the e-card as well … it was perfect to pair with Santa’s visit tonight.
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What a delightful gift and card to receive this morning! Thank you! The squirrels had a fantastic Christmas party, thanks to the efforts of their dear friend Linda. (I especially love the one with a bow on his neck.) Merry Christmas! 🌲
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Glad you enjoyed this post Barbara – I wanted to do something special this year. The cookies are Nutter Butters sandwich cookies, which I’ve given them before and they really like them. I had to order the walnuts from Amazon as they don’t carry them in my grocery store – they were a hit too. I saved the rest of the walnuts for the dead of Winter for a treat for them. That gray squirrel with the bow on his neck … he was my original choice for the header image as he looks like he is waiting for something/someone. He sure is a cutie isn’t he? Merry Christmas back at you Barbara!
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Did you decorate the Nutter Butter cookies? I wonder what was going through their little minds (if they noticed) when they saw those big smiles on their treats? Did Santa did stop by? I’m sure they will enjoy those extra walnuts as the winter drags on…
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Barbara – Yes I did decorate those cookies – that is my handiwork. 🙂 I just used the icing this time since I was giving out walnuts, but last time I decorated Nutter Butters, I went all out and put pink icing and plastered them with nuts (which might have been a bigger hit … see pictures in the link at the bottom). I have bought a few packages of Nutter Butters and more icing since I’m not returning to the grocery store until April (that’s my plan anyway). So I’ll make some nutty cookies for Valentine’s Day and Easter. That’s the first time I gave them walnuts – they did enjoy them. I hope Santa stopped by and brought food because I packed a bag of peanuts and sunflower seeds to take today, then got outside and saw how much snow there was and it was still coming down, so shoveled and came in. I feel badly but I decided against taking that trek (two-mile round trip) since they had not plowed/salted the street. This post shows what I did for Easter for the house squirrels. I stopped going to the Park for about a week as I worried about COVID, then resumed. I had seen the occasional Cooper’s Hawk flying overhead and one dive bombed my car and barely missed the windshield. I did not know there was a hawk sitting in the tree across the street. My neighbor saw it, didn’t tell me until I asked if he’d seen Grady, the gray squirrel who showed up every morning with his mate/buddy. I am sure that’s why Grady didn’t show up the second day I passed out cookies … he was my best customer, pleading for peanuts incessantly and was fearless. If only my neighbor had told me about that hawk … now all six squirrels are gone from around the house and the birds as well. I will do this next time – I bought walnuts, pecans and pistachios to use for Valentine’s Day and Easter cookies.
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That’s the post 2020 needed! Merry Christmas Linda 🙂
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Glad to give you a smile Michael. I figured I’d send out some merriment which we are all lacking in 2020. Merry Christmas to you too!
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Merry Christmas Linda and all your furry friends!
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Thanks Kate – back at you!! I hope Christmas Day will allow you a much-needed break from the mayhem of moving.
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Rest and lots of food!
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Merry Christmas and thanks for the much needed cheer.
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Merry Christmas to you too Alison. I figured we needed a little merriment in this Christmas message and I’m glad to give you that much needed cheer.
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So to my count this would be “Eight Squirrels a leaping” in the 12 days!
More hats than you can shake a Christmas tree at!
Loved this Christmas post Linda!
Merry Christmas!
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Glad to give you a smile Wayne. There are squirrels everywhere in this post … munching, crunching and scoping me out to see what I have brought for them. Merry Christmas to you too!
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I think they are expecting you to throw them a huge Peanut or something!
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Yes, the higher up you are in the tree, you may be further away from the food, but you have a good view of what’s there!
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Linda………………………………that was just delightful……………………………I still say you could write story books and publish them you writing style is so good……………………………thank you for the cute animated Christmas card
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Thank you Ann Marie – I am glad you enjoyed the squirrels’ tale about Christmas Eve and the animated Christmas card about Santa’s big journey. Also, thank you very much for your nice compliment. I thought we needed something fun for our Christmas this year. Merry Christmas!
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I agree!
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Merry Christmas 🎄
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Thank you – same to you!
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Please read my post
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Thank you, I did read your most-recent post.
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Merry Christmas Linda & Friends! What a fun and cheerful post at the end of a not so fun year. Your pals are truly lucky to have you coming by regularly and spoil them. I hope you had a nice and relaxing day! 🙋♀️
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Hi Sabine – glad you liked it. I thought we all needed something fun and perky for our 2020 Christmas. My pals are likely missing me because I didn’t go Thursday due to high winds, Friday we got two inches of snow and it was slippery as it had some moisture in it and they hadn’t plowed the street and we had more snow today and snow drifting and blowing … we were only supposed to get a dusting. I hate to be away for three days especially in our bitter cold and snowy weather. Sigh. I hope tomorrow is better as we get more snow tomorrow night. I know it is warming up end of next week and an inch of rain Thursday so I hope it stays mild and doesn’t ice up. My Christmas was quiet and relaxing – how about yours?
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Fun and perky is what we all need more of these days! Thanks for helping us out in that department. Our Christmas was quiet and mostly relaxing. Our kids came by and we visited in the driveway standing far apart while exchanging small gifts. I would have loved to let them all into the house, but one of them has had a slew of Covid infections at work and the other one had the sniffles a few days ago. We’ll get together in the spring when we can sit outside in the garden. The weather here was cold and rainy and one night we had a hard frost. Had to plug in the bird baths. I hope your weather gets better for a stroll at the park. Be well Linda! 🙂
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Yes, that’s what I thought Sabine. I was disappointed my Jacquie Lawson cards did not work properly. There was a glitch of some kind and I want to send a New Year’s card in a blog post (which card I’ve already picked out) so hope it works better. That’s too bad you had to spend Christmas visiting/exchanging gifts that way … next year will be better and like you said, in the Spring you can get together in the garden. We had snow Christmas Day – supposed to be a dusting to one inch but was two inches, heavy snow and ice in between. Then we had another 1 1/2 inches Christmas evening. I finally made it down to the Park today – I don’t know who was happier, the squirrels or me! Took a lot of pictures in/around the snow and some chickadees as well. They are the cutest birds. I’ll look at the photos on New Year’s holiday … we are getting some bad weather later in the week, freezing rain, rain, then snow … three days in a row. Hope they are wrong.
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Well, I haven’t had a problem and hope it’ll stay that way with JL cards. The snow sounds so beautiful and christmasy but I know that it’s no fun to walk or drive in and also to shovel. Hopefully the weather will settle down for you!
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There was a glitch of some kind and the first time ever that happened. I was enjoying the Advent calendar. Did you get your subscription in time to enjoy the Advent calendar Sabine? It was different this year with the download to your desktop.
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I skipped the advent calendar since I’m still working on freeing up space on my hard drive! 😉 I did check it out and will keep it in mind for next year.
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I don’t think they always had you download it and thank you for reminding me … I need to take it off my hard drive. I did enjoy it … next year we’ll both see it. I like the “Happy New Year” nature card flipping through 12 months in 2021.
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I wish I was a squirrel! You are getting pretty clever on that computer of yours! Lol Merry Christmas Linda!
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Thanks Diane – I had fun putting hats and antlers onto the furry pals’ heads to make this post. My cookie decorating skills were not as good as putting the nuts on the icing and will do that for Valentine’s Day. My snowmen had lopsided smiles. 🙂 Hope your Christmas was merry Diane.
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Aww, thank you Linda for this amazing post! You’ve made my day! Happy Holidays!
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Glad you got a smile Jeanine! Happy Holidays back at you!
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So… add poet to your list of talents! Those squirrels must be so grateful for their very own Santa Claus – YOU! You even decorated their Christmas cookies. Merry Christmas!
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Thanks Laurie – I thought I’d try my hand at some poetry and give everyone a smile. I had fun putting the hats on those furry friends. They did love their treats, the nuts the best I think. Glad you enjoyed the e-card – there was a glitch with Jacquie Lawson this year but they have since fixed it. Merry Christmas back and you Laurie.
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Linda, these pictures are too adorable. Imagine all these squirrels with little hats on them. Are they photoshopped on? I can’t imagine actually putting them on squirrels. Just as a sidebar, when my husband and I moved to CA, we lived in a rented adobe home in the center of a walnut grove. I don’t like walnuts, but I could glean as many as I wanted. So I roasted them at a low temperature in the over for a few hours and gave them away as presents. Funny story, I was walking one day and came across more walnuts than I could pass up and I didn’t have a bag. I used the front of my shirt until all of the sudden I started getting pinched. I looked down at my blouse as more and more red ants poured out of the walnut seams. Those walnuts never made it home, and I barely did. 🙂
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First, thank you for following my blog Marsha.
I don’t have Photoshop, but have discovered a fun site called Photofunny (https://www.photofunny.net)
They have lots of fun stuff to do there, but I use them when I want to add text to a photo or add what they call “stickers” on holiday photos for my blog. For Halloween I had a black squirrel and added a trick-or-treat bag to his paw. It is free to use and I recommend registering which just takes a minute and then you don’t have the Photofunny logo on the corner of your creations.
That sounds like a prickly situation with the red ants in the walnuts – yikes! I hear of people collecting walnuts and acorns for the squirrels from their trees. Somewhere in this Park is a black walnut tree and when the walnuts ripen, you see the squirrels chewing off the green rind and eating the walnut. This Fall I took a photo of some of the walnuts with the husk on and asked if anyone knew what this item, which looked like a lime, was … so I learned something new!
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Yes, walnuts are a hard nut to get to. The “lime” coating eventually dries and often just falls off. None or few of the ones that are still on the ground by December have their lime coating still on. If they did, the ants wouldn’t be able to enter as easily. They get in and leave the nut looking like a lacey image of itself. I am not an ant lover! 🙂 I’ll check out photofunny. That sounds like fun. I use Canva.com a lot to add text. It is clearer than Photoshop. It use it to make all of my featured photos.
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I did not know that about the walnuts Marsha. I think there is a walnut tree in the Park unless they are bringing the whole walnut with the green covering from the ‘hood to eat in their nest. I had taken a photo of a squirrel with two of them in a tree and asked readers what they were. I don’t like ants either – we had carpenter ants at the house and we lost two oak trees because of it, not to mention needing to remove all the mulch in the perimeter gardens and a locust tree. Grrrr. Hate ants and now every Spring, I get those tiny ants coming in for about three weeks. Insects are the bane of my existence – I am scared of spiders and centipedes! I have noted the two programs you use to try them down the line when I get a chance. I was using Fotor.com, but more and more enhancements were becoming pay only. If you use photofunny, register to avoid the watermark. It only takes a minute and I’ve not gotten any e-mail mailings from them (yet).
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That was so cute Linda! And festive. One of your very best! What program did you use to add the special effects? And walnuts for a treat – they must have enjoyed that, and the special cookies. The whole thing brought a smile to my face. Thanks for the e-card too.
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Glad to give you a smile Joni. I wanted something fun and festive for this year, as gloomy as it has been. I use a free site called Photofunny (https://www.photofunny.net)
You can add text to the photo or add what they call “stickers” … so the stickers in this case were antlers, bows, Santa hats and stocking caps. You could also add Christmas lights, wreaths and all you do is upload your photo, manipulate your photo and their clip art by dragging it. I still use Fotor for collages though. If you use this free site, take a minute to register then you don’t get the logo/watermark on your photos. They did luck out with the cookies and walnuts especially – I think they liked the walnuts best. I ordered them from Amazon since they no longer carry whole walnuts at our grocery store. I have a half-bag left for sometimes in the Winter. Glad you liked the e-card too. I tried to match the e-card to the post as much as possible. Loved the elves throwing their hats in the air after sending Santa off! It had a jigsaw puzzle too at the very end.
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What a lovely post, made me smile but you always do.
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Thank you Barbara – I am glad I gave you a smile. I thought we all needed a little frivolity and merriment after this year. Thank you for the nice compliment as well – that just made my day!
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Aw, so sweet – I love the rhythm of the post and you did awesome sprucing up the photos with festive touches!! Merry Christmas to you and the squirrels – I hope Santa grants all of our wishes for an early spring! xx
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Glad you liked it Shelley – I decided this was the year to do something special and fun and I went all out with “stickers” for the critters. I hope we get an early Spring too Shelley … we have a rollercoaster of wacky weather this week, from near 50 this morning to freezing rain and snow later in the week. Ugh.
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Yes, I did enjoy the post! You’re very clever.
Yeah – it is -4 this morning. Clear skies and a full moon. I thought we were supposed to get snow. Oh, well, we’re into the misfit weather prediction times yet again. Feels like dejavu!
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We are getting some ugly weather tonight – a smorgasbord and two inches of snow followed by freezing rain (always the worst). It’s annoying, especially when our rain on Sunday evening wiped out 99% of the recent snow!
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Stay safe – that sounds like a nasty mess of weather!
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Thanks Shelley – I shoveled and it all melted … of course, had I not shoveled, the freezing drizzle would have coated the snow and made a colossal mess. We try again Thursday into the early hours of Friday morning. Good thing the revelers will not be out!
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Very cute! I loved the poem and all the festive costumes your little friends were wearing! I hope you and your fur buddies had a wonderful Christmas!
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Thanks Janis – glad I gave you a smile. I decided we needed something light and festive for our Christmas 2020. It was a nice and quiet Christmas for me … and, a white Christmas, which I could have done without, but I was overruled it seems. 🙂
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Your humor cracks me up! At first I didn’t know it was a poem written from the squirrel’s viewpoint. Wonderful touches to the photos with Christmas-y accessories. Thank you for the sharing the animated card!
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Yes, they are quite opinionated and occasionally they hijack my blog – this was one time. 🙂 Glad you liked the animated card as well Esther.
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